Well, I'm no lawyer, so it's possible I'm misinterpreting here, but it seems to me the XML files might be covered under "System Libraries". I know they're not system libraries per se, but they seem to loosely fit the general qualifications laid out in the following section taken from the current GPLv3 (at
<a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html</a>):<br><br>"The "System Libraries" of an executable work include anything, other
than the work as a whole, that (a) is included in the normal form of
packaging a Major Component, but which is not part of that Major
Component, and (b) serves only to enable use of the work with that
Major Component, or to implement a Standard Interface for which an
implementation is available to the public in source code form. A
"Major Component", in this context, means a major essential component
(kernel, window system, and so on) of the specific operating system
(if any) on which the executable work runs, or a compiler used to
produce the work, or an object code interpreter used to run it."<br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 9/13/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Catherine Jones</b> <<a href="mailto:cathjone@eskimo.com">cathjone@eskimo.com
</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Just went to hear RMS and came away enlightened but confused.<br><br>Here's my problem. I'm writing a textile-design program (pre-alpha
<br>tarball available at <a href="http://patternand.org">patternand.org</a>) that the requires following to<br>run:<br><br>(1) my own Python code (released under GPL v3)<br><br>(2) some files I wrote containing numerical data in XML format; this
<br> data describes some sample polygons and ways to arrange them on a<br> flat surface - ideas that I believe (and hope) are common math<br> knowledge in the public domain<br><br>My question: how should I deal with item (2) above?
<br><br>Right now the numerical data files included in the tarball contain<br>some labor - it took work to write them - but not original ideas.<br>They're not code so much as mindless transcription of existing math<br>
ideas into a particular XML format I devised, a format deducible from<br>my Python code.<br><br>Currently there's a great ambiguity. The tarball includes the standard<br>COPYING file containing the GPL v3 license. The Python files in the
<br>tarball have individual GPL v3 copyright notices attached, but the XML<br>data files don't. Should they have some kind of copyright notice<br>attached - maybe a Creative Commons license that's compatible with GPL
<br>v3?<br><br>While the current XML data files are just examples to show how the<br>program works, I may in the future want to incorporate into the<br>program XML data files (mine or another contributor's) that contain
<br>some real artistic or mathematical creativity. What should I do share<br>such content and keep it part of the commons? Any help welcome....<br><br>Catherine<br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________
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